1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to an apparatus and method for browsing contents, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method capable of enabling a user to efficiently browse contents.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the capacity of digital storage devices (such as hard disk drives and flash memories) increases and technology for compressing contents develops, the amount of contents that can be stored and managed by the digital storage devices is rapidly increasing. Accordingly, digital storage devices, which could previously store only tens or hundreds of pieces of contents, are now capable of storing thousands or tens of thousands of pieces of contents. As a result, searching for desired contents has become much more difficult. In particular, most handheld or home multimedia apparatuses are generally provided with limited input devices (such as simple buttons or remote controls) as opposed to a keyboard or mouse. As a result, browsing and selecting contents can be difficult using these limited input devices.
FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate conventional methods of browsing contents. Referring to FIG. 1A, a basic contents browsing method includes storing a plurality of contents in files and bundling and browsing the files by folder. FIG. 1A illustrates an example of browsing MP3 music contents based on file and folder. Referring to FIG. 1A, folders 11 and files 12 are displayed on a screen 10 of a digital display. A user may open a folder using a cursor 13 and browse files 12 within a selected folder 11. In order to find desired contents using this file and folder-based contents browsing method, the user has to remember a file name of the desired contents that are stored in a corresponding folder. In addition, if the amount of contents increases, the desired contents can be difficult for the user to locate and select.
A metadata-based contents browsing method illustrated in FIG. 1B includes extracting metadata 21 and 23, which is additional data describing contents 22 and 24, from the contents 22 and 24 and browsing the contents 22 and 24 based on the extracted metadata 21 and 23. Metadata 21 and 23 includes file attributes, tag information corresponding to a multimedia type, and description of contents 22 and 24. When contents 22 and 24 are input to a device, metadata 21 and 23 of the contents 22 and 24 may be extracted directly by the device or by an external device.
FIG. 1B illustrates an example of browsing MP3 music contents 22 and 24 based on metadata. Referring to FIG. 1B, a user may browse MP3 music contents 22 and 24 based on various metadata 21 and 23 extracted from the MP3 music contents 22 and 24, such as artist, album, genre, title, date of creation, and year of release. If the user selects any one of the extracted metadata 21 and 23, contents 22 or 24 corresponding to the selected metadata 21 or 23 can be browsed. Compared with the file and folder-based contents browsing method of FIG. 1A, the metadata-based contents browsing method of FIG. 1B can utilize more various information. In addition, in the metadata-based contents browsing method, desired contents 22 and 24 can be found if any one of available metadata 21 or 23 is identified. Therefore, the metadata-based contents browsing method is more efficient than the file and folder-based contents browsing method.
However, although the metadata-based contents browsing method uses more various information than the file and folder-based contents browsing method, finding desired contents can still be increasingly difficult as the amount of contents increases. Therefore, an efficient contents browsing service that enables a user to easily and quickly browse desired contents even when the amount of contents increases is required.